Alfred Stepan, noted political scientist, dies

Political scientist Alfred C. Stepan wrote numerous books and was an expert on democracy.

Political scientist Alfred C. Stepan wrote numerous books and was an expert on democracy. (Columbia University)

Bob GoldsboroughChicago Tribune

Alfred C. Stepan was a noted political scientist and university administrator whose expertise was in the areas of Latin American studies, comparative politics and government transitions in Arab countries.

Stepan authored 17 books and wrote dozens of academic papers.

“Al was one of the most original, perceptive and influential political scientists of the past half-century,” said Archie Brown, a University of Oxford political scientist and emeritus professor of politics. “He was always interested in big questions, those that were fundamentally important in the real world of politics. He never allowed himself to get bogged down in narrow technocratic research. His writing was always firmly evidence-based.”

Stepan, 81, died of complications from cancer Sept. 27 at his home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said his son, Adam.

Born in Chicago, Stepan was the son of Alfred C. Stepan Jr., who founded Northfield-based specialty chemicals manufacturer Stepan Co., and his wife, Mary Lou. Stepan grew up in Winnetka and graduated from Loyola Academy and then from the University of Notre Dame, where he received a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1958.

In 1960, Stepan received another bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Balliol College at England’s University of Oxford, where his roommate was the nephew of future India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Stepan’s mother and Gandhi became friends.

Stepan served as an active-duty Marine officer from 1960 until 1963, a period that covered the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Stepan was always more interested in academics than the family business and the Cuban events stoked an interest in Latin America, his son said.

After leaving the Marine Corps, Stepan became a stringer and then a special correspondent for Economist magazine, based in Latin America, where he covered Brazil’s 1964 coup d’etat.

Stepan returned to the U.S. and served as a policy analyst for the Rand Corp. from 1966 until 1969 while earning his doctorate at Columbia University. Stepan then taught at Yale University from 1970 until 1983, becoming a full professor in 1976.

In his scholarship, Stepan’s earliest topics involved Latin America, especially focusing on Brazil and Peru. Later subjects involved Southern and Eastern Europe and shifts from military to civilian government. He also looked at how democratic systems break down, ways to maintain a multicultural, multinational democracy and the relationship between inequality and democracy.

“In a sense, he combined the skills of a top-level journalist … with the academic rigor of a social scientist,” Brown said. “(And) no one ever finished an article written by Al Stepan thinking, ‘So what?’ The subject really mattered, and he had invariably thrown new light on it.”

Scott Mainwaring, Harvard University Brazil studies professor, met Stepan as a Yale freshman in 1973. He said Stepan was “demanding but extraordinarily giving” as a teacher and “easily the most important person in my career.”

“Al Stepan was one of the world’s most important scholars of democracy and authoritarianism since the 1970s,” Mainwaring said. “Indeed, he was one of the world’s most important comparative political scientists during that very long time. Early in his career, he made hugely important contributions to understanding why democracies sometimes break down. Since the early 2000s, he spent a lot of time doing research in hard places, examining how democracy can work in places with sharp divides over religion and national identity.”

Stepan left Yale to become dean of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, a post he held from 1983 until 1991. Stepan continued teaching at Columbia until 1993, when he moved overseas to become the first president and rector of Central European University, overseeing campuses in Budapest, Hungary; Prague; and Warsaw, Poland.

In 1996, Stepan returned to Oxford, where he taught at All Souls College until 1999, when he returned to New York and resumed teaching political science and government at Columbia University. He retired in 2015.

“Al Stepan was an ebullient person and intellectual, a man of warmth and imagination, deep decency and ethical sensibilities,” said Ira Katznelson, a Columbia University history and political science professor and a longtime colleague. “His brilliant scholarship dealt with fundamentals, including the breakdown of democracy, challenges of religious toleration and the role of the military in politics.”

Stepan received many awards, including the International Political Science Association’s Karl Deutsch Award for cross-disciplinary research in 2012. He also was a member of both the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and served on Notre Dame’s board of trustees from 1985 until 1991.

Stepan recently had been advising the Tunisian government on how to work through its new constitution and on how to build a framework that was both democratic but also protected religions. He drew on his work as the founder and director of Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion, which was created in 2006.

Even after retiring, Stepan continued writing and mentoring graduate students. He wrote a letter of recommendation for a graduate student just two weeks before he died.

At the time of his death, Stepan had partially completed a book due out in 2018 titled “The Minaret and the Ballot Box,” about Islam and democracy. To research the book, he had visited Myanmar, Tunisia, Senegal, India and Indonesia.

“Al Stepan had boundless intellectual and physical energy,” Brown said. “Although he held senior administrative posts in the course of his career, he did not get buried in the nitty-gritty of administration. He was always interested in the broader issues, in ideas and in making a difference in the world.”

In addition to his son, Stepan is survived by his wife of more than 53 years, Nancy Leys Stepan, a retired Columbia University history professor; a daughter, Tanya; seven grandchildren; two sisters, Marilee Stepan Wehman and Charlotte Stepan Shea; and three brothers, Quinn, Stratford and John.